“Stranger things have happened,” the judge said mildly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. And if either one of them had been in touch with somebody, I wouldn’t be so worried. But they haven’t. It’s been a week, and nobody’s heard from them. And since Amy left her purse behind, they only had whatever cash Simon had in his jeans. About two weeks’ pay at most, his father thinks. That won’t get them very far, especially if they have to rent a room somewhere.”
He paused, then added, “Something else. Their cell phone usage—high as hell like every teenager’s—stopped abruptly. Nothing after Saturday night, about the time they left. Which figures; probably Stuart letting Amy know he was waiting with the car. Nothing since. I mean nothing. The phones are either off or destroyed. And I have to lean toward the latter, because both had GPS locators in them; the parents had made sure of that and that the GPS was locked on at all times, so the kids couldn’t disable without destroying the phones. A condition of them having their own phones, I gather.”
“And no joy.” It wasn’t a question.
Jonah nodded. “How many teenagers do you know who can be more than a foot or two away from their cells? If they aren’t in a pocket, they carry them in their hands. A lot of the girls don’t even bother with purses anymore, just a little billfold-like thing on a long strap that holds their cell, driver’s license, and car keys if they have a car, and maybe a few bucks or an ATM card.”
He held up a hand before the judge could ask. “I know that because they volunteered the info and showed me the billfold things. Most of the girls seem to have them. The twenty-first-century version of the fanny pack, I guess. Handy. But not helpful to me.”
“Maybe they tossed their cells and bought burners,” the judge suggested.
“It’s a possibility, especially given the locked GPS signals, but who would they call except friends or family? I don’t really know Amy, but according to her BFF, she would have called once they were out of town and on their big adventure, proud of herself for having pulled it off. The friend seemed sure. And worried.”
“Because there was no call.”
Jonah tapped his fingers on the stack of papers on his desk. “You signed the warrants so I could get the phone records of all the kids—plus everybody with a kid in town. And it’s a sign of everybody’s worry that they don’t seem to mind. Anyway, I’ve pored over these records every day and had Sarah go over them in case I missed something. No strange numbers on any of these accounts. No unknown numbers. No untraceable numbers.
“We’ve also gone over their laptops or desktop home computers, and no joy there either.” He sighed again. “Two very ordinary teenagers started to elope, and something stopped them near the edge of town. Not only stopped them—but took them.”
“With no ransom demand.”
“No. But . . . there are possibilities I’m not about to mention to the parents or anyone outside the investigation unless I have to. For one thing, there’s a hell of a lot of money to be made these days in human trafficking, and kids in their age range are typical for the targets. I’m not talking about pretty girls sold to be sex slaves for some sicko, though there is that. I’m talking about something even worse. Something I didn’t know anything about until I took those FBI courses last year.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” the judge said.
“I wish I didn’t know about it,” Jonah responded frankly. “Even the FBI isn’t sure if it’s a huge organization or a bunch of smaller ones. Sort of like a bunch of secret clubs whose members are pedophiles, monsters into torture and snuff films, whatever horror you can imagine. The FBI has a unit set up just for the human trafficking, and they have young undercover operatives all over the country trying to infiltrate the groups.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. Dangerous as hell for the young agents. The FBI can’t go in as buyers and commit crimes, so they have to send in undercovers to be potential victims.”
“Jesus, who’d volunteer for that?”
“Some dedicated young agents, I’d say. As for the buyers . . . Pay a small fortune, and you can have your pick of attractive young people or kids, and do with them whatever you want, in a nicely discreet location and among other monsters with the same . . . tastes. The FBI hasn’t yet figured out how these perverts communicate, how they’re notified that one of the traveling groups will be in their area, but somehow they find out where to meet, at some very isolated location. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours later, the club is gone, the perverts are gone, and someone in the organization takes care of the cleanup and disposes of the bodies, most of which are never found.”
“Nobody gets out alive?”
“Not according to the FBI. They believe some of the kids last for more than one . . . encounter . . . but eventually the client pays enough to kill to get off, and does just that.”
“I wish I didn’t know that,” the judge said, adding immediately, “You think our two missing teenagers might fit?”
“Maybe some good news there. I was on the phone an hour yesterday with an agent in that FBI unit. The more I told her about the situation here, the less she thought they could have been targets of these traffickers. They tend to go for street kids, college kids, or clubbers in major cities. They apparently keep them under observation for a while, learn their habits and schedules, learn which kids are vulnerable, on the point of dropping out or burning out, or just don’t have anyone to worry about them. Then they take them. Sad as it is to say, more often than not nobody even reports these kids as missing for weeks—if at all.”
The judge frowned. “A stranger watching our kids would stand out here, especially if he or she watched for that long.”
“Yeah, that’s what the agent said. No way would one of the traffickers have taken a couple of high school kids a mile from their homes in a little mountain town. Just not where they hunt. Too high-risk for them.”
“So you’re back at square one.”
“Yeah. All I know for sure is that they’re gone—and there was no sign of struggle near the car. That’s pretty much it.”
“Then you’re doing all you can.”
“Tell my conscience that, will you? Then maybe I can sleep tonight.”
The judge eyed him. “I’m a little older than you, so let me give you a piece of advice. Understand that you aren’t going to win them all, find every bad guy, rescue every damsel—or couple—in distress. Even in a little town like this, there’ll be murders you can’t solve, other crimes you can’t solve. And lost people who never get found.”
“I don’t like it,” Jonah said. “It’s not why I became a cop.”
“Course not. Also why it makes you such a good one. But you won’t win every time, Jonah, no matter how good you are. No one wins all the time. Do everything in your power, do your job. But don’t let it eat you up inside.” He rose to his feet, gathering his tackle box and rod. “You’re a good cop, and that’s good for the town. But nobody expects you to be perfect.”
Jonah glanced at the clock on his desk and raised his eyebrows at the judge. “Thanks. Aren’t you going out a little late? It’ll be dark in another hour.”
“Full moon. I get some of my best fishing then. And it’s so peaceful. I very much enjoy being alone with the fish and my thoughts.”
“Well, I hope you get lucky,” Jonah told him.
Words that would haunt him for a long time.
—
AS HE HAD every night since the young couple had disappeared, Jonah worked late, going over and over information already burned into his brain, hoping to see something he’d missed, overlooked, or misunderstood every other time he’d studied it.
Nothing. Not a clue where those kids had gone.
Or where they had been taken.
Or any answer to the fairly spooky question of why both his watch and Sarah’s watch and Tim’s had stopped when each of them had reached the abandoned car, and why all their cell phones, still functioning, had all been missing the time spent out there.